Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Every Country In The World

Buddy and a sighting of the Elusive Cheapchick!

Although it is Christmas my mind has been elsewhere. Thinking of future possibilities! I have been following a young Irish blogger over at onestep4ward.com although in order to see photos and the true story he has to be followed on his facebook page. His goal is to travel to every country in the world. This journey began in 2006 and if successful he will have completed it by the end of 2016. Thanks to travelwithkevinandruth.com for recommending the blog back in July. I find Johnny's travels fascinating, particularly when he travels to some of the scariest and most beautiful countries in the world, some of which are the same!

My visited country list is much shorter (based on 193 country United Nations list - note there are some unrecognized countries):

In April I will be adding Spain to the list as we spend nine days traveling from the Costa Del Sol to Cordoba and onto Madrid. It is likely after following Mitchell is Moving for a couple of years his posts of the beautiful country and tasty food were factors in this choice of country to visit.

There are some countries on my list which I will likely see sooner than others. Due to my Scottish and French roots France and Scotland take priority. I may even have a zillion living cousins in France since my Grandpa immigrated to the USA at age 18 but had 17 brothers and sisters he left back in France. If things quiet down I would like to visit Ukraine as my husband's Grandparents immigrated to Canada around 1900 and I think it would be very interesting for us to go there. I was born a traveler, as entered my second country at the age of 6 months old, my new home, Canada. In my younger years I was a travel agent for Thomas Cook for 10 years until the industry came to an almost grinding halt after September 11th (*I managed an office through it).

Fortunately, my husband shares my love of travel and although his list is not quite as long as mine he is game for wherever I wish to travel. I spend hours planning out our adventures and he states that our trip to Portugal was his best vacation ever, so it must be paying off. My two favorite were Portugal and a trip to Egypt that Thomas Cook took me on in the early 1990s. We both love history and animals so that has a huge influence on where we go. Our company takes priority now so we can only tick off a country or two a year but since I am only 46 years old I have lots of time. If you wonder why I scrimp and save so much here is the answer - to save money for travel!

If I was fortunate to live in another country I would choose Mexico or Portugal. I have a love of Mexico for its people and food and have traveled there about 15 times. Portugal just struck me as an extremely comfortable country to live in where things made sense from the corner store to the transportation systems, even if I did not speak Portuguese, and cheap wine might have been an influencing factor.

Are you a world traveler? How many countries have you visited? Where have you traveled and which was your favorite?

18 comments:

Love the photo of you and buddy! You're both adorable! I'm not a traveler at all. I hate to leave home. Our 2 day road trip to NY last summer wasn't too bad, but I don't want to do that again any time soon unless I absolutely have to. I definitely don't want to fly ever again either, so I will travel with you in spirit end enjoy all your wonderful photos.

Lovely to see you after all this time.Do you miss not working for Thomas Cook? I loved seeing their very grand looking offices in Mumbai which opened in 1881.I love travelling but I'm happy to return to the same places rather than tick off any lists. I've been to France, Greece (several of the islands and the mainland), Italy, Slovenia, Turkey, Malta, Brazil, Spain, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote (in the Canaries) Tunisia, Morocco, Bali, Lombok, the Gili Islands, Malaysia, Ireland, Wales, USA and, obviously, India! xxx

I miss the travel business but not the hours (retail) or lack of money in the industry. When I started out you could make a living at it - after September 11th it was much tougher as airlines cut commissions and in general you had to work much harder/longer for the same money. I got out and went into insurance as that is a much more stable although boring industry. You definitely qualify as a world traveler. Cant wait for your new stories from India!

So great to see your beautiful face! Thanks for sharing the photo. I love to travel to different countries and cultures, but I limit my choices based on political/social issues and gay rights. I suppose I COULD keep a list of the places I WON'T go.

Yes, Johnny Ward is doing an amazing thing, isn't he? Not afraid to take chances, that's for sure. And some people thought we were crazy going to Colombia. Some of the African countries that he has visited are really messed up.

We are at 24 countries, which is a lot to some people and not so many to others. But we like to spend a lot of time in each country to really get a feel for the culture. I think we need to get over 50 countries to really make it sound like we're world travellers!

You beat me in the travel department, just US (born there too), Canada (now live there too), and Mexico. Having our float cabin has put a crimp in our travelling a bit, we love it so much we just want to stay home. Have a great Christmas and New Years. - Margy